This invention, which resulted from a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy, relates to gas mixtures advantageous for use in a diffuse-discharge switch of an inductive energy storage system.
In certain applications such as high-power microwave sources, pulsed lasers, particle beam generators, nuclear event simulators, and directional energy weapons, it is necessary to store electrical energy for release in pulses having extremely short durations. For this purpose an inductive-type storage system has a higher potential for storage of electrical energy than a capacitive-type storage system, but one of the problems which must be solved in the operation of the former is that the rapid opening of a diffuse-discharge switch used for transferring energy from a storage loop to a load induces a high voltage across the switch, which tends to maintain a conducting arc in a gas between the switch electrodes. What is needed to solve this problem is a gas mixture which has the capability for conducting a large amount of energy between the electrodes of a diffuse-discharge switch when the switch is in a conducting mode and which has a high insulating capability when the switch is in a nonconducting mode.